


Rough Cut

by Melibe



Series: Sharper than Any Two-Edged Sword [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drinking to Cope, First Kiss, Gabriel is a wanker and Beelzebub is a vicious beast and they deserve each other, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Insults, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Other, Past Relationship(s), They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Verbal Abuse, but at least it's consensual, first in these forms anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melibe/pseuds/Melibe
Summary: “Verbal cutting,” said Beelzebub. “They trade insults. It starts with friendly teasing, then gets meaner and meaner. The loser is whoever starts crying or quits playing first. Or whoever gets caught pulling punches.”“That sounds like a fight, not a game.” Gabriel frowned. “Why would friends want to be mean to each other?”“Becauzze it’sfun, you knob.”He stared at them with distaste. “I suppose you would think so.”Beelzebub crunched a piece of ice between their teeth. “You’re not so above it all. You’d enjoy being mean tome, wouldn’t you?"
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Sharper than Any Two-Edged Sword [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681705
Comments: 21
Kudos: 60





	Rough Cut

**Author's Note:**

> killer prompt by [TheFallenCaryatid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFallenCaryatid/pseuds/GoodbyeVanny)  
> brilliant brainstorming by [TheFallenCaryatid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFallenCaryatid/pseuds/GoodbyeVanny), [aretia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia), and [Euny_Sloane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euny_Sloane/pseuds/Euny_Sloane)  
> incomparable beta work by [Euny_Sloane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euny_Sloane/pseuds/Euny_Sloane), seriously if you like anything about this fic you can probably thank Euny for it
> 
> <3 <3 <3 to all you ineffable bureaucracy lovers

As Beelzebub settled in at the bar, they decided they liked 1999. It came with all the apocalyptic trappings of the end times, humans losing their shit over the least thing and throwing themselves into sin like there was no tomorrow, but without any of the hard work of a real Armageddon.

The Lord of the Flies rarely bothered to tempt on Earth. They had people for that, notably a serpent who wasn’t good for much else. But they liked to keep their hand in, and this crowded, sticky bar was an ideal venue. When Beelzebub demanded something “sweet and gross,” the bartender delivered a drink called a cement mixer, which they enjoyed immensely while buzzing through the surrounding mental cacophony.

Down the bar sat a borderline alcoholic. They tempted him to another drink he couldn’t afford. At an overheated booth, a lonely customer service rep longed to flirt with her best friend’s wife. Beelzebub provided the necessary nudge. One of the bartenders snapped at a rude customer and the demon prince encouraged him to add some profanity.

Oh, it felt _nice_ , this hands-on ruining of lives. Over the years Beelzebub had been forced into a grudging appreciation of Crowley’s mass-market approach, but for sheer pleasure, artisanal tempting couldn’t be beat.

Then the door banged open and Beelzebub’s good mood curdled like the cream in their drink.

“Beelzebub!” Gabriel sang out, much too loudly. He stood there attracting stares with his ivory coat and his flawless hair and his gemstone eyes, piercing the crowd until they landed on the demon prince.

“What do you want,” they sighed when he joined them at the bar.

He smiled broadly. “I’m here to thwart you, of course!”

Beelzebub loathed that smile. They could never completely forget that it used to be their favorite sight in all of Creation. Once they’d considered the world’s very first sunrise to be a poor imitation of Gabriel’s smile.

They gave him their nastiest glare. “You came all the way from Heaven, just for this?”

“Not at all! I happened to be visiting one of my tailors, and I felt what you were doing from halfway across the continent.” He wagged a finger in Beelzebub’s face. “Virtue is ever-vigilant!”

“Don’t you get tired of that line?” Beelzebub beckoned to the bartender, a kid with a five o’clock shadow and killer eye makeup, and said, “Make me something that bites.” The cement mixer had been nice, but they needed a lot more alcohol to deal with Gabriel if he was sticking around.

“You got it, boss,” said the bartender, then turned expectantly to the archangel.

Gabriel looked puzzled for a moment, then recovered his smile. “I’ll have a high-quality beverage, please,” he announced.

The kid laughed, turned it pretty convincingly into a cough, and started to prepare the drinks.

“Zzo,” said Beelzebub.

“So,” agreed Gabriel.

Sitting on a bar stool brought Gabriel’s head lower than usual, while it boosted Beelzebub’s height by several inches. They’d still have to look up to see Gabriel’s face, but that was the last thing they wanted to see. Instead they scowled at his shirt collar, wondering if his purity would prevent it from taking a stain no matter what they dumped on him.

“Here you go, friends.” The bartender interrupted their awkward silence by sliding a couple of glasses across the counter. “Four Horsemen for Creepy Hat. Old Fashioned for Elizabeth Taylor.”

“I literally just bought this suit—it can’t be old-fashioned!” protested Gabriel. “Elizabeth who?”

“It’s the eyes,” the kid explained, before moving on to the next order.

“Humans,” said Gabriel, displaying his incredible capacity for both condescension and cluelessness. He took the glass he had no intention of drinking from and watched Beelzebub slurp from theirs. “You’ve stopped tempting, haven’t you? Since I got here.”

They nodded wearily. Let him feel proud of himself if he liked. It wasn’t like he’d overpowered them or anything. “You’re distracting.”

“ _I’m_ distracting?” His eyebrows flew up and he smiled at them, a much smaller smile, almost a private smile. Beelzebub could have slit their own throat for the poor word choice, which blew the dust off ancient memories.

 _You’re a pest. Stop distracting me_ , Gabriel used to say. _I’m trying to compose celestial harmonies_ , or, _I’m trying to get Creation organized._ And they’d laugh at him, and cover his eyes with their wings, until he gave up on work and paid attention to them instead.

Beelzebub tossed back the rest of their drink. They didn’t want to fuck around with ordering another, so they snapped their fingers and the bartender suddenly remembered that they already had. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” they told Gabriel. “I’ve done enough damage. Everyone I’ve touched in here is already on their way down.”

Gabriel turned serious. “Like who?”

Beelzebub considered which of their accomplishments to highlight, and settled on the two middle-aged men leaning against one wall with their heads close together, fists tight around their drinks, speaking with quiet intensity. “Those humans are best friends, but not for much longer. They’ve known each other since they were kids. They get together every Tuesday night to play a game, usually pool. This time I suggested cutting.”

Gabriel eyed the pair of humans apprehensively, like he was expecting a knife fight.

“ _Verbal_ cutting,” said Beelzebub. “They trade insults. It starts with friendly teasing, then gets meaner and meaner. The loser is whoever starts crying or quits playing first. Or whoever gets caught pulling punches.” Their new drink arrived and they snatched it up without looking.

“That sounds like a fight, not a game.” Gabriel frowned. “Why would friends want to be mean to each other?”

“Becauzze it’s fun, you knob.”

He stared at them with distaste. “I suppose you would think so.”

Beelzebub crunched a piece of ice between their teeth. “You’re not so above it all. You’d enjoy being mean to _me_ , wouldn’t you?”

“I—no! I oppose you because you are evil, not because I enjoy it.”

“You don’ t look forward to the final war?” prodded Beelzebub. Their mutual hostility had to be as personal for the archangel as it was for the demon lord. “Meeting me on the fields of Meggido for battle, ending this once and for all?”

“I suppose I do look forward to that, but not for ‘fun’.” He inserted air quotes around the word to make it clear that he’d never apply such a frivolous word to Armageddon. “I look forward to the satisfaction of victory.”

“I’m sure your crushing defeat will be good and satisfying, too.” Beelzebub dug their nails into the bar, itching to get under Gabriel’s skin. “Call it whatever you like, but you do want to fight. So let’s play.”

He cocked his head. “You want to play the—the cutting game? With me?”

Satan’s sake, why did he always have to spell everything out? They had a faint sense that it used to be cute. A really long fucking time ago. 

“Yeah. Words instead of swords. Practice for the big one.”

“We take turns? And whoever stops the game loses?”

Beelzebub bit down hard on another piece of ice. Of course Gabriel would be as laser-focused on the rules of this stupid game as he always had been on any kind of rules.

 _We are angels, we keep the Word and the Law. Lucifer’s speech goes against the order of things,_ he’d insisted.

Over time, the arguments had grown more heated. _You can’t have it both ways. Rules don’t bend, they only break._

Finally they recalled him shouting, _Make your choice, for God’s sake! Are you with him or with me?_

“Yeah, yeah.” Beelzebub waved irritably at the liquid in Gabriel’s glass, which found itself abruptly transported to the floor outside the bathroom. Then they ordered another round for both of them by similarly occult means.

“And what about . . .” Gabriel closed his eyes in concentration, lighting up when he remembered. “Stakes, that’s the word! What are the stakes?”

Beelzebub was lost. “Stakes? What d’you mean, like for witches?”

At first Gabriel looked as confused as they felt. Then he rallied. “I mean, what are we playing for? What does the winner get?”

Beelzebub considered a prize to be beside the point; they just wanted to tear into Gabriel, knowing that he’d sit there and take it. “The satisfaction of victory,” they echoed mockingly.

The next round arrived, inspiring Beelzebub to add, “And the loser pays the—the slot.” They blinked. That wasn’t right. Were they already drunk? “I mean the money for our drinks. The tab! Loser pays the tab. I’ll start,” they said, before Gabriel could do any more lawyering. “You’re a self-important twat.”

He arched one eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s an insult? I mean, I am pretty important.”

“You don’t have to answer mine, jackass. Just dish out one of your own.”

“Well, obviously you’re Fallen, so you have no redeeming features.”

“And you’re an idiot who can’t even dress himself without help from humans.”

Gabriel looked offended, clearly longing to justify himself. But he was such a sap for rules. “You’re a wicked reprobate, an immoral villain.”

Beelzebub couldn’t help laughing. “Shit, are you going to call me a knave next? A wastrel?” They squared their shoulders and imitated Gabriel’s voice. “You self-righteous simpleton!”

“Righteousness is good. Simplicity is good!” exclaimed Gabriel. “Look, I’m not stopping the game, but I don’t think it’s working. Your insults sound like compliments to me, as I’m sure mine do to you.” Quickly he added, “You vicious beast.”

Beelzebub snorted. “Fine. None of the standard angel and demon lines, then. We can’t hurt each other by pointing out the obvious differences between us.” Considering, they brought one foot up onto their seat and looped their arms around their knee. “But we also have a lot in common, don’t we? We’re both leaders. At least, _I_ am. You’re a shitty excuse for one.”

Gabriel’s back became somehow even straighter. “What do you—oh, right.” He swallowed. “Well, you couldn’t make it as any kind of leader in Heaven, even a shitty one.”

Beelzebub’s eyes narrowed. They hadn’t _wanted_ to be a leader in Heaven. “I’m not done telling you what a piss-poor Archangel you are. You’re incompetent. Everything you do, Michael has to do over again.”

He scoffed. “And you only do what Lucifer tells you to do. You’re not a leader, you’re a puppet.”

“Oh, _I’m_ a puppet?” they snapped. “You’re the biggest fucking puppet around.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is there a rule against using the same insult as your opponent?”

“Shit. Probably.” As a demon they probably ought to be cheating, but they knew they could win this game without.

“It’s all right. I’ll let you go again.” So fucking magnanimous.

Beelzebub let out a buzzing breath, taking a moment to strategize. They’d spent thousands of years thinking about how to hurt Gabriel. “Did you know that when people smile at you, it’s because they’re afraid of you? Not because they like you?”

A furrow appeared between Gabriel’s eyebrows and a little frown settled on his lips. It was an expression Beelzebub might once have called endearing, and could now only describe as aggravating. “Well, nobody’s afraid of _you_ ,” he said. “If the demons do what you say, it’s only because they know who the orders really come from. You might as well not exist.”

That was impressively harsh, but Beelzebub shrugged it off. All the demons knew that Lucifer couldn’t be bothered with the day-to-day business of Hell. It was Beelzebub’s way or the highway.

They tapped their chin and refined their aim at Gabriel’s ego. “The angels who aren’t scared of you, they know you’re irrelevant. When was the last time you had an important assignment? The annunciation, two thousand years ago? You think sounding the horn for Armageddon is some kind of honor, when it’s the only job they could think of for a useless blowhard.”

Gabriel’s hand on the bar clenched into a fist. His neck and face had gone red. “And what plans do you suppose Lucifer has for you? When the end times come, he’ll replace you with his son. He’ll wipe you out of existence, if you’re lucky, and leave you forgotten and tormented at the bottom of the Pit if you’re not.”

“He wouldn’t be the firzzt asshole to drop me like a hot coal when our relationship became _inconvenient_ ,” Beelzebub shot back without thinking.

They hadn’t meant it as their next move in the game, but Gabriel flinched visibly. “You’re a fucking liar,” he retorted. “Twisting the truth to suit yourself, _conveniently_ ignoring what really happened.”

“That’s a boring insult,” they drawled. “But then again, you’ve always been boring. It was no contest between you and Lucifer.” The lie hit Gabriel like a boot to the solar plexus. His eyes widened, violet darkening to indigo.

“That’s only because you have no taste,” he managed to get out.

Beelzebub’s nostrils flared. Gabriel smelled of sweat and linen and lilac and pain. Running their tongue along their teeth, Beelzebub could almost taste the archangel’s ichor pulsing beneath his skin. Demons are predators, and even flies can bite. They leaned forward to spit poison in the wound. “I’d choose him again in a hot second, knowing I’d Fall for it. Knowing the agony I’d face. That’s how boring you and the rest of Heaven are.”

Gabriel’s eyes shone, and for a moment Beelzebub thought it was holy light. Was he going to smite them? They prepared to defend themselves—looked again—and realized his eyes were simply glistening with unshed tears. The sight was not as gratifying as they’d expected.

“You—you’re pitiful,” he choked out. “Trying to make yourself feel important by insulting an archangel.”

“You’re the pitiful one. Your boss doesn’t even talk to you anymore.” The words came easily, too easily, even though they wanted to cringe away from the raw emotion that cracked Gabriel’s voice. “You lap up any attention you can get, any validation. Because you can’t face the fact that you don’t matter. Not to anyone in Heaven. Not to anyone one Earth. And not—” they added, licking their lips— “to me.”

Gabriel blinked. He started to say something, then stopped. He cleared his throat and tried again.

And suddenly Beelzebub couldn’t take it anymore. “Fuck this.” They jumped off their stool and slapped a pile of bills on the counter. “We’re done.” They shoved a path to the door and ran out into the night so they wouldn’t have to see the first tear spill down Gabriel’s face.

* * *

“Hey man, are you okay?”

Gabriel nodded, treating the bartender to one of his shallowest smiles as he pushed Beelzebub’s money across the counter. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until he could at least remember what calmness was, if not actually experience it.

Then he tried to analyze the situation in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, just like the handbook recommended. He gave up when he started hearing his weaknesses cataloged in Beelzebub’s contemptuous tone.

He glanced at his second drink, untouched as the first had been. Of course he wouldn’t sully himself with alcohol, even if that was how humans seemed to deal with this kind of thing.

This kind of thing. What the fuck was _this kind of thing_?

He’d been on the verge of tears. He wasn’t proud of it, but he could admit it. Beelzebub had quit just a few seconds from victory, and they had to have known it. Gabriel couldn’t think of a single reason for what they did, other than the one that was so obvious—and so obviously impossible—that he could barely think it.

They cared about him. Contrary to every other shred of evidence from the past six thousand years, somehow Beelzebub still cared about him.

Gabriel stood and made his way through the room, pausing at the spot Beelzebub had pointed out earlier. A shattered glass lay where the two old friends had been standing, its contents drying to a tacky mess on the floor. Clearly their game hadn’t ended any better than his own. Gabriel gritted his teeth. He should have been mitigating Beelzebub’s damage in here, but instead he’d let the demon waste his time with insult after sadistic insult.

 _Incompetent. Irrelevant. Useless._ Gabriel’s face heated and his hands tightened into fists again. _You’ve always been boring. I’d choose him again._ But if they meant it, why didn’t they stay to watch him cry about it?

Whatever had happened here tonight, it wasn’t over. Beelzebub must still be on Earth, or Gabriel would have noticed the surge of demonic energy that always accompanied their abrupt descent to Hell. He left the bar and reached out with ethereal senses.

The alley where he caught up with Beelzebub was even filthier than the bar had been, littered with trash and smelling of piss. The demon lord was marching through it, an audible buzz of irritation vibrating the air around them. Gabriel wondered if they were heading anywhere in particular, or if this was their equivalent of a jog in the park.

“Beelzebub,” he called.

They stopped but didn’t turn around. “You’re so fucking needy. What is it now?”

“You threw the game.”

Their shoulders hunched up to their ears. “I got tired of it.”

“You threw it,” he insisted. “For me.”

“Satan’s bloody bollocks, Gabriel, I zzaid I got tired of it!”

He closed the distance between them in two long strides, grabbed Beelzebub’s shoulder and spun them around to face him. They glared up at him and slapped a hand on his chest, as though to shove him away. But instead the hand just rested there, nails like black stains against the creamy fabric of his coat.

Beelzebub’s gaze dropped from his eyes to his lips, and Gabriel wondered if they could see his mouth crammed full of the questions he didn’t dare ask. _Will you “get tired” of Armageddon? Will you lay down your arms, bare your throat on the fields of Megiddo?_

Right behind the questions crowded a desperate plea, closing up his throat. _Don’t, don’t, don’t do that. I could never live with myself._

Gabriel felt Beelzebub’s shoulder vibrate faintly under his fingers, and realized too late the magnitude of the boundary he’d crossed by touching them in this form for the first time. The Fallen were to be touched with a weapon, or not at all.

But now he wanted to wrap his arms around Beelzebub, pressing that subsonic buzz against his chest. He wanted to find out if embracing the cold and haughty demon prince would feel anything like his fractured memories of embracing the mischievous, hot-tempered angel.

Even knowing he should break the contact at once, Gabriel couldn’t bear to take his hand away. He slid his thumb over the smooth black silk of Beelzebub’s cravat, and found himself wishing they didn’t wear so much clothing, wishing their neck wasn’t walled off by that high collar.

Of course, he was one to talk. Three layers of fabric separated his chest from the faint heat of the demon’s small hand. He wanted every layer gone. He wanted those fingers, those nails, on his bare skin. He swallowed the thought before he accidentally miracled himself naked.

Beelzebub’s fingers gripped the edge of his lapel and gave a sharp tug. Their gaze was still fixed on Gabriel’s mouth and he came to a somewhat belated realization.

Experimentally, he leaned down a few inches, bringing his face close to Beelzebub’s. Their expression didn’t change. The corners of their mouth still turned down and their eyebrows still knit together, but splotches of color appeared on their cheeks. He placed his free hand on their hip, and watched the color intensify.

 _Are we going to kiss?_ thought Gabriel. _Or are we going to stand frozen in this alley for the next twenty years, until Armageddon?_

Beelzebub answered the question by surging up on their toes and pressing their mouth to Gabriel’s. His throat made some kind of sound he didn’t know how to classify as he tried to process the sensation.

The warmth of the demon’s lips was no surprise. The dryness was, though, and the rough patches that caught at Gabriel’s lips. On instinct he drew his tongue over their chapped lower lip, thinking only to soothe and heal. But Beelzebub gasped, a sharp and hungry sound, and both of their hands tightened on his coat. Their mouth opened against his, licking, biting, _devouring._

Warmth flared into heat, igniting every point of contact—Beelzebub’s collarbone under his thumb, their hip pushing against his hand, the ravenous movement of their mouth. Beelzebub kissed like an immolation. Heat rushed so fiercely through Gabriel’s body that for a moment he thought it had to be some kind of demonic attack. Maybe Beelzebub had loosed a spark of Hellfire from their tongue, and it had burned down his throat to blaze in his belly, consuming and utterly destroying him.

In the next moment Gabriel knew that was ridiculous. His body had simply been stimulated by the kiss to rearrange its blood flow according to an arousal reaction. But by then he’d already pulled away, dropping his hands and lifting his head.

He was startled to see that Beelzebub’s eyes were closed as they rocked back on their heels. They sucked in a deep breath, as though they hadn’t breathed for the entire length of the kiss. Their cheeks were bright pink and their whole face seemed to glow, acutely reminding Gabriel how they’d once looked with a halo.

Feeling unmoored and manic, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I guess that’s my satisfaction.”

Beelzebub’s eyes snapped open. The glow was gone. Gabriel had never seen a blue so cold. “Glad you’re _satisfied_ ,” they sneered. “See you at Armageddon.”

The ground under the demon lord’s feet cracked open and swallowed them before Gabriel could get in another word. Groaning at his own idiocy, he looked down at the scorch marks Beelzebub’s fingers had left on his collar. His lips still tingled.

 _How many times,_ he wondered, _am I going to lose you?_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on a smuttier and happier re-match for the sequel. Might take about a month, since I'm trying to keep my other WIPs updated too.
> 
> The title of the series comes from Hebrews 4:12, _The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart._
> 
> Thank you, always, ever so much, for reading!


End file.
